Elvis’ Girlfriend Said He Was ‘Not Very Cool at All’ on Their First Date
When Elvis Presley met his girlfriend, Sheila Ryan, he quickly threw himself into the relationship. At concerts, he introduced her to the audience as his new girlfriend and began buying her expensive presents. She wasn’t as sold on the new relationship, though. She admitted that she was a bit surprised by his uncool behavior on their first date.
Elvis’ girlfriend said he did not seem cool on their first date
Elvis and Ryan had their first date in Las Vegas between his performances. She could scarcely believe she was in the same room as him.
“I went up to the suite between shows, and Elvis came up from the first show, you know, sweating,” Ryan said in the book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick. “I was sitting at the little bar in the entranceway all by myself — you know, I looked like I was thirteen years old in those days, I had an angelic little face, and really my personality went along with it … So anyway, I was sitting there kind of pinching myself, thinking this was just too weird, and he came over and sort of half-hugged me, he was sort of a little boyish, he made some comment about the way I was dressed because I had on a pair of slacks.”
Ryan had known Elvis as a celebrity for years but found it strange to meet him in person. He wasn’t at all what she expected.
“He was just like a little kid, all excited about things, and someone at the show had given him a fire engine hat, someone else had given him a bib — they threw things at him all the time — and he put on this fire hat, and he put on this bib, and this is our first date,” she said. “Not very cool at all, is it?”
Elvis’ girlfriend admitted that she found their first date bizarre
All of this felt like a bit much for Ryan, who began to feel like she was having an out-of-body experience.
“Anyway, he just went on about his normal routine, and then at some point I guess he kissed me,” she said. “The way I felt about it, really, was I was doing it, but I wasn’t in the situation, I was looking at the situation. I was observing, sort of, from out of my body, thinking, This is just too bizarre.”
Because of this, she took the opportunity to leave when Elvis fell asleep. She knew he wanted her to spend the night, but she did not want to.
She eventually grew to understand him more
Ryan admitted that parts of her relationship with Elvis were awkward. He made many demands of her, gave her expensive gifts that made her uncomfortable, and expected her to treat him like a child. Still, she felt she eventually grew to understand him.
“And gradually, I stopped looking at the relationship from the outside and became more relaxed with who he was — I mean, he was a very unusual person, he had unusual circumstances, he was just trying to be comfortable, it wasn’t really at anybody’s expense,” she explained. “You gave, and you got.”
The couple eventually broke up, and Ryan went on to briefly marry actor James Caan.
